text:
Are a handful of IT companies, some of them big U.S. names, hogging most of the government business in Britain?
About 20 software and IT suppliers earn £10.4 billion ($15.5 billion) a year in revenue from the state by supplying information and communications technology (ICT) goods and services. At the pinnacle: big U.S. tech firms such as HP and Accenture, as well as Europe's own Capgemini.
Now the British body tasked with ensuring fair competition in industry, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), says it is fed up with the "oligopoly," whereby just a few companies control the IT at huge ministries such as tax collecting body HMRC and the Department of Work and Pensions, and is opening an inquiry into market rigging.
[ Read how Accenture is helping Scotland burnish law enforcement technology. Scotland, Accenture To Overhaul National Police IT Platform. ]
The fact that more and more of Whitehall's IT is in the hands of a few, well-compensated suppliers is not news. Ever since outsourcing was aggressively introduced by the Thatcher government in the early 1980s -- for IT as well as other parts of central government back office activities -- big suppliers have become adept at grabbing increasingly larger shares of the pie for themselves. Government officials had already begun to push back by asking ministries to consider the G-Cloud first. It also encourages ministries to tap small and midsize businesses (SMBs) as often as possible to ensure a diversified market.
The OFT's call for information into the supply of IT goods and services to the country's public sector moves up the debate. The body is asking suppliers and purchasers to "get in touch" with it about their experiences to help it clarify the structure of the sector. It wants, for example, the number of suppliers and their relative market share, whether there are barriers to entry that make it difficult for smaller businesses to compete, and whether any suppliers seek to limit the interoperability and use of competing systems with their own. It also wants to know whether there are "high barriers" to switching suppliers, such as costs of transferring and restrictive license agreements, that limit customers' freedom of movement.
The OFT also is interested in customer behavior, wanting to know if decades of IT outsourcing has resulted in a "high level of dependence" on suppliers' expertise that could undermine the ability of British public bodies to achieve good value for money over time. Healthy competition in any market, it notes, drives down costs, increases efficiency and promotes innovation, while a lack of competition can hinder productivity and economic growth.
"Information and communication technology is a crucial part of any modern economy and is key to improving productivity in public services as well as businesses," said OFT CEO Clive Maxwell. "Given the vital role that this technology plays in the delivery of public services and the cost to the taxpayer, [we] believe it is important to explore whether there are any restrictions on competition."
Maxwell added that his team wants to hear from both industry suppliers and public sector users about how competition in the market works, any problems that they have experienced, and "how it could be made to work better."


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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 13:37
Post subject:
starhawk wrote:
sickgut, I have (I think) a very basic request... could you post some screenshots of, er, Pussy, on the first post? I would be more inclined to download it if I knew what it looked like. I'm a visual kinda guy.
Two other (slightly less important) questions:
- is there a CD version? I have slow Internet (not dialup, it's 3g off a cell tower and it's pathetic bordering on appalling) and DVD-Rs are generally rather expensive in this town.
I should not have assumed it to come on a DVD
nevermind on this one.
- I assume you have included wireless drivers a la Puppy?
This last one is important to me -- it's rather contradictory to tell people "Lin is better than Win" and then turn around and say "...but you have to use Windows drivers for your wireless adapters", particularly when there are native Linux drivers for most of those adapters already! Adding ndiswrapper and calling it a day is common with Debian and Debian-derivatives, and that is simply not acceptable practice to me.
Yes the CDROM version of Pussy has alot of wireless network drivers, however the soon to be released DVD version has alot more and these drivers will be included in the CDROM version when i released the newer revision of that.
Have attached a screenshot to this post, hope it works as i dont attach many things to posts. If it isnt displaying then you can see this screen shot at:
and just for giggles, check this out... its Pussy showing off how its only using 28MB ram to run a full xorg session with a webserver/ ftp/ ssh server etc running with no swap.
If you goto http://www.thepussycatforest.info then cick the first link on the top of the page you will see the various pussies to download. The current flagship is the Pussy Xtra beta 2, this fits on a CDROM and is 600mb or so. I recommend using this version for the time being as the base version that is 200mb or so has a couple of bugs. Or you can download the USB image version and use the linux dd command to image the a USB stick. You can do that with windows now too with a program called Win32DiskImager, you can download this from my website:
Note Pussy is still beta quality but when i finish this DVD version ill fix up the other versions and we will be at release quality and i will pay for a spot of distro watch and get the Pussy Linux name out there and know.
I intend to include all the windows programs you might need to make a USB stick/ SD card or external HDD installation of the Pussy from the Pussy CDROM/ DVD from windows. The programs will be included in the ISO.
Pussy is more technically oriented and i have given no thought to asthetics at all except for a desktop background and a ASCII Pussy welcome logo at the login screen (user: root / pass: pussy).
Note that when you startx to get the desktop working, its the JWM environment only and it is visually unimpressive and has a low quality background and no background icons. To enable the high quality Rox filer desktop, click the Meow? button and then Rox-filer background.
Pussy is separated in 3 stages, the console, the low quality JWM destop and the more sophisticated high quality dekstop provided by Rox-filer.
This is setup like this to be more friendly to low RAM computers as the JWM desktop runs very nice on 128mb RAM or even 96 or 64mb RAM, it will run on 42MB RAM but slowly. With the Rox-filer desktop enabled, RAM usage jumos up a step and 64/ 96mb RAM will not be enough for a fast computing experience.
There are documents/ instructions about save files/ save partitions and swap files/ swap partitions in the catroll-panel
have fun....
running on 42MB ram and using only 28mb with no swap
2704 Time(s)
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Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Posts: 5056
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 15:24
Post subject:
Oh my. You are in dire need of a graphic artist
OK, I'm joking (mostly) but you aren't kidding when you say you didn't pay much heed to aesthetics. That comes off looking a bit like an older DSL version.
You need some THEMES dude! (If you switch to IceWM you get a lot of these... and more with very little effort... but I don't know if there's an IceWM for Debian...)
Just curious... what does the Kitty Litter icon on the desktop do?
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 4499
Location: Sydney Australia
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 20:39
Post subject:
"I intend to include all the windows programs you might need to
make a USB stick/ SD card or external HDD installation of the Pussy
from the Pussy CDROM/ DVD from windows.
The programs will be included in the ISO. "
How about the Hiren's Boot cd usb installer files...
which are quite small.
And the Hirens How To USB sites in your browser etc.
Of course you can install Hirens that way too,
otherwise you edit out Hiren's listings in the menu.
For me Hirens just works.
The only thing I can't get going is >> Press F2 or F3
for boot Puppy differently...puppy pfix=ram....etc
Third last post.
Hirens Grub4dos zip 187.97 KB
Hiren's USB formatter zip
USBFormat.zip 34.4 KB
Hirens grldr zip
- makes USB multi bootable
grldr.zip 135.79 KB
How To...those files are in the sites below
Launching Hiren's BootCD from USB Flash Drive
Hiren's BootCD From USB Flash Drive (USB Pen Drive)
Some Folder names are there >> 4 multiboot
and Menus to make each Puppy boot.
eg: I'm sure you get the picture.
title Puppy 431 (sdc1/puppy431)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /puppy431/initrd.gz
kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=usbflash psubdir=puppy431 pfix=fsck
initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz
title Puppy Lucid 520 (sdc1/lucid520)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /lucid520/initrd.gz
kernel /lucid520/vmlinuz pmedia=usbflash psubdir=lucid520 pfix=fsck
initrd /lucid520/initrd.gz
And add Metapad...excellent
good 4 editing menus in Windows 4 USBs. 45.68 KB
Runs perfectly.
My version posted is 3.51....however there is a newer one...
but untested by me.
I also suggest these 2 no install Windows ISO burners
Imageburn...no install.. don't update.
I uploaded it from a Hiren's cd ages ago.
Burn no more than 32 speed.
ImgBurn.exe .... Size: 1.53 MB
BurnCDCC...new release >>Version 2.02 Released 9/29/2012
also now has a 64 bit version in the download
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 4499
Location: Sydney Australia
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 20:54
Post subject:
" Two other (slightly less important) questions:
- is there a CD version?
I have slow Internet (not dialup,
it's 3g off a cell tower and it's pathetic bordering on
appalling) and DVD-Rs are generally rather expensive in this
town. EDIT: I should not have assumed it to come on a DVD :
oops: nevermind on this one."
" Oh my. You are in dire need of a graphic artist :lol: "
Maybe sickgut could post them to you
>>> at my expense.
So he perfects Pussy...then sends me a PM
>>> I post him the money....no problemo
and he sends you out the goodies.
You might guide him on graohics...links etc.
Everybody a winner.
Just don't tell >>> me mum>>> Ize being nice.
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Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Posts: 5056
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 21:06
Post subject:
cthisbear, while I appreciate your offer, I'm going to decline it.
He's in Australia if I understand correctly. I'm in the US.
Better to spend a long time for a download, than to deal with US customs.
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 4499
Location: Sydney Australia
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 00:49
Post subject:
"Better to spend a long time for a download, than to deal with US customs."
I could post my pic on it mate...what could go wrong.
Homeland star's security drama at airport
Anyway....offer is still on....or
someone in US posts you a cd/dvd etc
and I pay them Paypal or something
Happy to help..Chris.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 07:10
Post subject:
starhawk wrote:
Oh my. You are in dire need of a graphic artist
OK, I'm joking (mostly) but you aren't kidding when you say you didn't pay much heed to aesthetics. That comes off looking a bit like an older DSL version.
You need some THEMES dude! (If you switch to IceWM you get a lot of these... and more with very little effort... but I don't know if there's an IceWM for Debian...)
Just curious... what does the Kitty Litter icon on the desktop do?
Other than a high quality wallpaper for the rox filer back ground that saintless gave me a link to, and my own lame attempts of making a cat pussy logo for the jwm only desktop i have done nothing with asthetics. Even the high quality wallpaper with the face of the cat at the bottom right hand corner was chosen mathematically/ logically as i have the icons in the upper left corner and the lower right face of a pussy cat i thought would balance it all out. the icons are so high up and to the left because i want them to be viewable on 800x480 screens on 7" screen EeePC's, even the current layout pushes that to its limit.
there are a couple of reasons that i figure i have no idea about incorporating asthetics into Pussy:
I see asthetics as a polish the OS gets when everything else is sorted
I have large missing gaps in my eyesight and i am color blind
I do not know how to use even the basic paint programs effectively
I do not dress in cloths that are neat and snazzy, as long as my body is covered im OK
However, i do appreciate art as much as the next guy, i just have no ability to create visual art myself, i cant even pick out a color scheme to paint my house with that doesnt offend people living in my street and what appeals to me is never pleasing to others.
I use a hair trimmer on the closest trim every so often as my hair cut and that is only when it gets so long that it gets in the way, i have no idea how to brush my hair or style it like a normal person, i also do my beard with the trimmer at the same time i do my hair
I have no sense of asthetics at all
however, i do appreciate music, poetry and other things intensely.
i have no idea what looks good or is fashionable or cool
I dont even have the ability to sort through pictures people have emailed me that could be used as backgrounds for pussy, i have no idea and no ability to decide what looks good. the only preference i have is a black background as it gives off the least amount of light as i have a lupus/ chronic fatigue syndrome type sickness that makes me light sensitive.... there isnt much light comming from a monitor but it makes a difference when i sit in front of it all day, i also have the screen as dark as possible or i cant see it properly.
however, even tho im missing 40% hearing in one ear and 30% in the other (i put a pen through my ear drum in one ear when i was 3 or 4 and an infection damaged the other), i have trained myself to listen very well and i can even echo locate with a high pitched "sssssss" sound. Even with a mono sound file recorded and played back i can pick the shape of the room it was recorded in.
I also have synesthesia as i see patterns and colors and textures of colors when i hear things. High freq hihats i see as white, an analogue synth lead i see as green, a bassline i see as brown and or black and a snare as light grey and bass kicks as black a cello or piano or flute i see as yellow or orange to red with the lower freq notes being grainy like sand. There is another thing, names have smells and some natural smells that animals make that are usually offensive like a male cat marking its territory in your house, really doesnt bother me and i also see colours and textures with smells. Maybe im animalistic
So maybe its how i perceive things that has made me lopsided. However this has only ever been a plus for me never a negative, im sure i gain more enjoyment from sound that most others it is very pleasant.
This may explain why i have quite alot of sound/ music apps in pussy.
Kitty litter is kinda like trashcan/ recycle bin... there is a catroll-panel option to empty it.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 07:24
Post subject:
ive included grub2 in pussy, the package is there but it doesnt affect how pussy boots and runs, however ill add a catroll-panel option to reinitialize grub and it will go through asking you questions and you have a chance to set it up on your hdd and then copy over the pussy files to your hdd or vice/ versa. There will be a very stern warning that this is only for experienced users.
ill review indepth the other posts that where posted recently about the other tools to setup dual booting/ hdd install etc. Your posts are not lost on me even if i take a while to reply.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 10:26
Post subject:
Just to bump the thread, and to show how many packages so far have been added to Pussy DVD (only a little more than half full at present) and to give everyone an idea of what is being added just for the hell of it, here is the current list of packages added so far.... any comments are welcome.
Packages added so far are:
xsane - scanner software for X
mozilla-plugin-vlc - play media embedded in websites like .wav or .mp3
rosegarden - music composition and MIDI workstation
audacity - digital audio workstation/ wave editor
mypaint - paint program
jack - MIDI connection kit
jack-tools - tool for jack
qjackctl - utility to manage jack
bitscope - monitor jack
patchage - patch bay for jack
beep - type beep at the console and the pc speaker will beep
bb - demo of libaa ascii graphical library set to music
xsidplay + libsidplay2 + sidplay-base - X and console C64 music player
dcraw and fraw - read raw image data from files or cameras
cups-driver-gutenprint (included cups) - more printing functionality
escputil - epson printer maintenance utils
photon - a static HTML gallery generator
blender - no idea, some people have requested it before 3D modeling??
wimgs3d - same kinda thing as blender i think
ardour - digital audio workstation
vkeybd - Virtual Keyboard program (MIDI keyboard)
hydrogen + hydrogen-extra-drumkits - MIDI drum sequencer
timemachine - JACK audio recorder for spontaneous and conservatory use
bristol + bristol-data + monobristol - retro soft synth(s) monobristol is the GUI
fluidsynth + qsynth - softsynth, qsynth is the front end
amsynth - soft synth
aconnectgui - alsa/ jack connection kit
seq24 - MIDI sequencer
sooperlooper - looping sampler
jack-rack - effects "rack" for jack
lilypond - musical notation editor
ed - classical archaic frustrating horrible skitzophrenia causing Unix editor should be illegal
fluid-soundfont-gm - 149MB of soundfonts
dia - diagram creation/ drawing tool
pinta - similar to MTpaint or MSpaint basic drawing/ painting
geany - text editor with more features than leafpad
tweak - hexeditor
xaos - fractal explorer/ generator/ utility
klogic - digital circuitboard designer/ simulator
Axel + axel-kapt - download accelerator/ resumer app, axel-kapt is the GUI
gnome-mud - also known as gmud, a client for MUD, MUSH, MOO text games
libdvdcss2 - dvd decryption codec required to play most commercial dvd movies
installed from the deb-multimedia.org repo. i cant believe i missed that
in pussy-xtra, apollogies ppl.
gxine - media player, more user friendly than mplayer but cant play as many new vid file formats
cbrpager - reader for cbr files (comic book archive, popular these days)
fotoxx - digital photo editor
kover - WYSIWYG CD cover printer
mistelix - DVD authoring and slideshow creation application
okular - universal document viewer
ocropus - document analysis and OCR
openclipart-svg - large selection of open source clip art in .svg format (open using gimp or inkscape)
clipart is installed in /usr/share/openclipart/svg/ but ill add an easier to remember link
png2html - converts a .png image file into coloured ascii .html webpage
xplanet - renders planets with lots of different options in 3D
gniall - niall is a non intelligent language learner and has been around for years, this is a gnome or GTK version
coriander - ieee1394 digital camera control
celestia-gnome - celestial body 3D simulator
stellarium - virtual stellarium
gok - gnome onscreen keyboard
mc - midnight commander
gnome-orca - scriptable screen reader
virtualbox-4.2.0-debian-squeeze - latest virtualbox from www.virtualbox.org
alsa-base - more alsa sound stuff.. should have been in the other Pussies but wasnt
fontforge - edit or make custom fonts
denomo - lilypond GTK+ frontend
kguitar - KDE guitar tablaturization editor/ creator
terminatorx - some kind of sound synthesizer, Ubuntu studio calls this a DJ tool
solfege - an ear training tool whatever that means.
*lapsda-plugin - seemed like a good idea at the time.
festival - multilingual speech synthesizer
pidgin - multi protocol chat client
xchat - milti protocol chat client
lzma - lzma compression system, xarchiver should pick up on this automatically
advancecomp - collection of recompression utilities
lsof - list open files, no idea what that means, saintless uses it so it must be good
directvnc - a vnc client that can use the framebuffer for its display (pussy has framebuffer support
at a console/ terminal level, so this program will work without the need for the X/ Xorg/ x11 system at all
gstreamer - alot of gstreamer packages where installed due to some other programs needing it
ktechlab - circuit simulator for microcontrollers and electronics
qucs - Quite Universal Circuit Simulator
icedove - mail and newsgroup client with RSS and spam filter
koffice - office suite that uses KDE libs but still works without the KDE desktop
mysql-common-all + server + core- and other mysql packages installed as a result of koffice
gigolo - networking tool that can manage windows shares, ssh, ftp etc easier apparently.
gvidm - change monitor resolution quick and easy in X
lzop - lzo compression package, may not be needed... ill check it all out later
dvd+rw-tools - as the name suggests
genisoimage - advanced iso editor/ creator
agedu - Unix utility for tracking down wasted disk space
cdtool text based audio CD player and CDROM control commands
bplay - buffered audio file player/ recorder
kopete - kde msn client
gworldclock - show the time and date in specified time zones
mysql-server + mysql-client - mysql... whatever that is
intel-gpu-tools - tools for messing with an intel GPU, most cheap laptops have this GPU
amoeba + amoeba-data - some kind of OpenGL demonstration
alltray - a docking tray app
mesa-utils - 3D accelleration tools
driconf - configure dri video stuff
grafx2 - another simple paint program
grabc - click a pixel and it will give you the hex code for that colour
ffmpeg - latest from deb-multimedia.org
talk - send a message to another logged in user (terminal)
xtalk - same as above but graphical X11 version
tell - send message to a logged in user
usbview - look for usb devices
grub2 + os-prober + grub-common + grub-pc - all the grub bootloader for dual booting (installed but not active, its there if you want to use it.. a catroll-panel option should provide a walkthrough)
mencoder - utility for encoding videos etc
alsa-tools + alsa-tools-gui - console ad GUI based hardware specific alsa tools
alsaplayer-text - alsa sound player using a text mode no need for X system
alsaplayer-xosd - alsa player with a fancy on screen display feature
alsoft-conf - OpenAL-Soft configuration utility whatever that means
amarok - easy to use media player for KDE
audacious + audacious-plugins- media player and plugins for it
audacious-dumb - old school .mod music/ sound format file playback support
google earth - google earth by google
Package management:
Synaptic !!! - Finally we have graphical point and click package management.
Configure-Debian - easy to use front end for the debconf tool that lets you reconfigure packages just like when they have been installed for the first time
useful if you wanna change how lighttpd or mysql CUPS or SAMBA or something is configured by default in Pussy. No one config can keep everyone happy.
aptitude - not entirely sure how this is different to apt-get
Laptop stuff:
laptop-mode-tools - power saving features
usb-modeswitch - mode switching tool for controlling "flip flop" USB devices
acpi-support-base - power on/ off/ suspend etc and other functions
gkrellm-ibam - laptop battery monitor
gtklp - gnome to cups interface
xprint + xprint-common + xprint-utils - pretty much everything you need to print with xprint
xpp - X printing panel, may have something to do with xprint
Printer drivers:
min12xxw - Printer driver for KonicaMinolta PagePro
c2050 - Lexmark 2050 Color Jetprinter Linux Driver
cjet - Software PCL emulation for Canon CaPSL laser
foo2zjs - Support for printing to ZjStream-based printers
hpijs - HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS driver (hpijs)
hplip-cups - HP Linux Printing and Imaging - CUPS Raster driver
pnm2ppa - PPM to PPA converter
splix - Driver for Samsung's SPL2 (bw) and SPLc (color)
foomatic-db-gutenprint - OpenPrinting printer support - database for Gutenprint
cupsddk - Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
hplip - HP Linux Printing and Imaging System (HPLIP)
openprinting-ppds - OpenPrinting printer support - PostScript PPD files
hpijs-ppds - HP Linux Printing and Imaging - HPIJS PPD files
escputil - maintenance utility for Epson Stylus printers
ijsgutenprint - runtime for the Gutenprint printer driver library
cupsddk-drivers - a virtual package maybe useless i dunno
mtink - Status monitor tool for Epson inkjet printers
libinklevel5 - library for checking the ink level of your local printer
djtools - Tools for HP DeskJet printer
ifhp - Printer filter for HP LaserJet printers
ppdfilt - filter that inserts printer specific commands into print jobs
qink - Simple printer ink level monitor based on libinklevel
cups-pdf - PDF printer for CUPS
mpage - print multiple pages per sheet on PostScript printer
pconf-detect - Small printer auto-detect command-line tool
system-config-printer-kde - printer configuration utility
ink - tool for checking the ink level of your local printer
iceweasel - debian version of an out dated but very stable Firefox
midori - browser that is small and fast, renders HTML perfectly but doesnt support java.
If this browser suported java, it would be the one browser to rule them all
airstrike - dog fight 2 biplanes 2 player, abe - abes amazing adventure side scroller,
abuse - no idea.. a game,
bzflag client and server - a multiplayer tank game that has a large online community
billard-gl - billiards/ snooker/ 8 ball/ pool simulation
briquolo - breakout style game (not as good as arkanoid, nothing ever will be)
gnuchess - chess game
xjig - x11 jigsaw puzzle
gnome-games - shitloads of desktop games
kdegames - so many games its not funny
wesnoth + wesnoth-editor + wesnoth-music (149mb) - some kind of game thing also installed libboost-iostreams1.42.0 and libboost-regex1.42.0 427mb in all!!
ill add a link to the .ogg game music files, there is alot of them, they are good quality and would serve very well as a test for mediaplayers etc
bugsquish, bumprace, circuslinux, cuyo, funnyboat, heroes-sld, holotz-castle,jumpnbump
koules, lbreakout2, madbomber, supertux, tuxmath, vodovod, xsoldier, bsdgames, moon-buggy-esd, nettoe, zivot, animals
xblast-tnt, xpilot-ng, armagetronad, extremetuxracer, gltron, neverball, supertuxkart
trackballs, neverputt, pong2, froze-bubble, gtrans, hex-a-hop, lmemory,
desktop glitter/ widgets/ novelties:
xfireworks, xfishtank, xpenguins, xteddy - teddies and penguins etc for your X
oneko - a cat chases the cursor (now a mouse) around your desktop
xscreensaver + xscreensaver-gl + xscreensaver-data + xscreensaver-data-extra
xscreensaver-gl-extra + xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod + xscreensaver-screensaver-webcollage - screensavers
Xserver/ xorg input drivers:
xserver-xorg-input-* - this installed x11proto-core-dev xserver-xorg-input-acecad
aiptek, evdev-dev, joystick-dev, kbd, mouse, penmount,
synaptics-dev, tslib, vmmouse, void
xserver-xorg-video- drivers etc:
abiword gnumeric koffice gnome-office gnucash planner
Firmware/ drivers:
firmware-linux-free - free firmware for linux i presume
firmware-linux - probably even more firmware for linux
firmware-linux-nonfree - let me guess.. non free firmware for linux?
zd1211-firmware - possibly firmware for a zd1211
libertas-firmware - libertas wifi firmware
firmware-realtek - have a guess
firmware-qlogic - stating the obvious
firmware-ralink - i hope all this firmware works
firmware-netxen - so much firmware, so little time
-bnx2x - Broadcom NetXtreme II 10Gb firmware from ppl who put capital X's in the middle of names, so mature guys.
-brcm80211 - Broadcom 802.11 wireless cards
-intelwimax - Intel WiMax
-ipw2x00 - Intel Pro Wireless 2100, 2200 and 2915
-ivtv - MPEG codec formware aparently
-iwlwifi - oh look some more wireless network firmware from intel
-atheros - firmware for Atheros wireless network cards
-bnx2 - firmware for Broadcom NetXtreme II
atmel-firmware - Firmware for Atmel at76c50x wireless networking chips.
alsa-firmware-loaders - Firmware loaders for specific sond hardware
gimp plugins:
gimp-data-extras- An extra set of brushes, palettes, and gradients
gimp-dds - DirectDraw Surface) plugin for the gimp
gimp-resynthesizer: Gimp plugin for texture synthesis
gtkam-gimp -gimp plugin to open digital camera pictures
gimp-gmic - GIMP plugin for GREYC's Magic Image Converter
gimp2.0-quiteinsane: A Qt based SANE plugin for GIMP 2.0
gimp-plugin-registry - repository of optional extensions for The GIMP
gimp-gap - gimp animation package
gimp-ufraw - gimp imported for raw camera images
abr2gbr - Converts PhotoShop brushes to GIMP
gimp-dcraw - GIMP plug-in for loading RAW digital photos
video editing:
kdenlive kino openmovieeditor stopmotion dvgrab
ahcpd - adhoc networking support (wireless without the use of a router etc)
iputils-arping - send pings to mac addresses or something
iputils-tracepath - sounds suspiciously like traceroute
iputils-clockdiff - measure time differences between networked computers
ipv6calc - small utility for manipulating IPv6 addresses
traceroute - ping an ip or domain and it will show what ips are inbetween you and the destination
batmand - a better aproach to adhoc networking
bmon - bandwidth monitor and rate estimater
ethstatus - ncurses/ console ethernet bandwidth monitor
bridge-utils - Utilities for configuring the Linux Ethernet bridge
tinyproxy - a small efficient proxy server
corkscrew - tunnel TCP connections through HTTP proxies
doscan - portacanner to discover services on large networks
filezilla - full featured ftp ftps ftps2 etc client
gmediaserver - UPnP media server
icecream - lightweight stream download utility
nast - packet sniffer and lan analyzer
nbtscan - scan networks for NetBIOS name information
ndisc6 - IPv6 diagnostic tools
netcat - TCP/IP swiss army knife
netcat6 - as above but for IPv6
mango-lassi - share mouse and keyboard with other computers
synergy - share mouse and keyboard over network
kppp - kde dialup internet/ networking tool
teamviewer - collaberative network prog that lets you work on stuff together (i think)
webissues + webissues-server - collaberative network tool for X11
darkstat - advanced netwrk traffic monitoring tool that keeps logs of everything, not enabled
the user can enable it by editing /etc/darkstat/init.cfg and you can start and stop it
using: /etc/init.d/darkstat start ill make a catroll-panel option to enable this
xprobe - remote OS identification
weplab - tool to crack wep wifi encryption keys
wondershaper - restrict network bandwidth that other users are using
xtightvncviewer - small vnc client for X
x11vnc + x11vnc-data - vnc server for x11
vnc4server - a vnc server
vncsnapshot - allows you to capture a vnc screen and save it as a .jpg
Installed but have not described them yet:
fortune -
fortunes -
qcam -
xdaliclock -
streamer -
amule- saintless included it in his remastered.iso, so it must be good
geop-ip - must be something to do with geography and ip addies or national geographic and imps
tzwatch -
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 11:26
Post subject:
i still cant believe how many developers really think the world will end if you login as root.... ive found that xscreensaver wont run as root and thats a pain.... the solution in the FAQ for this? you should never be logging into your system as root! what? are you crazy or something?
it makes me want to puke.
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 4499
Location: Sydney Australia
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 19:23
Post subject:
"i still cant believe how many developers really think the world will
end if you login as root."
Agree. Taught them all I know.....and it's not much.
Sickie....take your time....have a rest...
we want to use you up and finish Pussy for release on
DVD...CD...and PI versions.
Cheers mate....Chris.
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Joined: 05 Sep 2011
Posts: 2420
Location: Germany
Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 19:40
Post subject:
http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/faq.html#root-fail wrote:
Don't log in as root.
As described above, xscreensaver disavows its privileges if it finds that it is running as root, for security reasons.
I did not know, how dangerous it is to use a screensaver application...
Maybe one fine day a computer will just show one message after boot up:
You should not run this computer - for security reasons. Bye...
and then shutdown automatically.
Would be a very small OS, though.
LazY Puppy
RSH's DNA
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2012, 05:14
Post subject:
Had a couple of days off inline with my resolution to avoid burnout and a balanced lifestyle.
However, i just got done installing everything to do with speech synthesis and text to speech and speech to text/ or commands but i have not tested any of this as the virtual box im using doesnt want to have mic and sound working.
Have also compiled QB64 for Pussy, its the best old school BASIC program i could find. It isnt the exact same as MS Quick Basic but its 99% there. Looks the same, works the same but doesnt infringe on copyright etc, its as close as you can legally get to it.
There is still only 1.6gb of size added to the iso and so i am open to collecting a large selection of wallpapers etc/ free music/ pictures and even free public domain ebooks.
there are a few things complaining on startup, nfs fails and mysql server has its panties in a knot because apache2 isnt installed. Apache2 while being more industry standard than lighttpd (pussy uses lighttpd) its a beast when it comes to resources when compared to lighttpd. There are other SQL options that dont need Apache2, but i have no way of testing the resulting install as i know nothing about SQL. I may have to rely on feedback from this forum when i release the initial preview of Pussy DVD for everyone to test/ look at. Ill also post off a Pussy DVD to people seriously wanting to try it and contribute to the project who cannot download 4.3gb due to bandwidth restrictions etc, ill send it free ofcause.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Tue 16 Oct 2012, 16:05
Post subject:
the fps game based on the Q3 engine called: "smokin' guns" will be included in Pussy DVD.
Altho "just another first person shooter that is based on technology from more than a decade ago" it is unique enough that i see it being able to appeal to a wider audience or a different user base than the already included assault cube and the possibly soon to be included Open Arena.
http://www.smokin-guns.org is the website and its available for Windows and Linux in .deb form or as a general Linux package (forgot to check if the general package is precompiled).
Its a western themed shooter that makes the player contend with clunky old weapons and a rather refreshing take on dual pistol setups as the left mouse button by default fires the left pistol while the right button fires the right pistol. There is a popular online community so the player will have no trouble in finding game servers to join and play against other people.
I am still trying to decide what is the best Windows program to include in Pussy is, something that will showcase the capabilities of Wine to run a Windows program. There is a common misconception amongst Windows users that yes, you can run some Windows programs on Wine in Linux, but Linux is overly technical and its really hard to be able to actually get Windows programs to run on Wine. I want to show people that its no harder than Windows, all you do it click on the program that is installed. Hell its easier than Windows because usually Windows is setup to require double clicking while Linux is usually single click.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: Tasmania, Australia in the mountains.
Posted: Tue 16 Oct 2012, 17:31
Post subject:
re: main office suite
I think Pussy DVD will replace OpenOffice version 3 with the latest Libre-Office.
However, i am still weighing up the pros and cons of all the different ways to add this to Pussy. I dont know how bleeding edge this needs to be in Pussy, is this the type of thing people actually care about? I am not being sarcastic or anything else, i genuinely do not know.
If the current version OpenOffice that is included with Pussy is still up to the task then ill leave it there.
I am looking at the different packages of OpenOffice/ Libre-Office... portable, squeeze (out dated) and wheezy (has a recent version of Libre-office but as far as i can tell it still isnt the newest version).
OpenOffice didnt seem to still be available at the sun/ oracle site, is it still being developed? I went to openoffice.org and it looks as tho its now called apache open office. I have no idea of any of this.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Appeals court upholds Act 10
Gov. Scott Walker calls ruling 'victory for Wisconsin taxpayers'
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld Act 10 in its entirety Friday.
Seven public unions, including the teachers' union and the largest statewide public sector union, challenged the law's constitutionality in 2011.
U.S. District Judge William Conley in March overturned part of the law requiring unions hold elections each year for members to retain their official status. The judge also said the law illegally halted the automatic withdrawal of union dues.
Gov. Scott Walker said the provisions in Act 10 were "vital in balancing the state's $3.6 billion budget deficit without increasing taxes, without massive public employee layoffs and without cuts to programs like Medicaid."
"Today's court ruling is a victory for Wisconsin taxpayers," Walker said in a written statement. "With this ruling behind us, we can now focus on the next state budget, which will invest in priorities to move our state forward."
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen also released a statement Friday afternoon.
"While there are no guarantees, it is my hope that this decision will pave the way for resolving any remaining challenges in a manner that supports the legislative decisions made by our elected officials," Van Hollen said.
Statewide teachers union president Mary Bell said they are reviewing the ruling and their options. The decision can be appealed to the full 7th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Do you believe it's in place, in effect in the state right now? " WISN 12 News reporter Kent Wainscott asked Walker on Friday afternoon.
"Absolutely, if constitutionality is the issue, a higher court than any in the state of Wisconsin when it comes to the U.S. Constitution, has ruled those reforms, in their entirety, are completely constitutional," Walker said.
"I think the ruling is unfortunate for working families in Wisconsin," Democratic state Sen. Chris Larson said.
Larson has fought Act 10 from the start, and said this new ruling doesn't change his view.
"Even though they ruled it constitutional, that doesn't make it moral, and that doesn't make it right, and I think most people understand that," Larson said.
The latest ruling comes four months after another judge, in a separate lawsuit ruled that Act 10 is unconstitutional, leaving the status of the law up in the air.
"Well, it depends on which ruling you're going to be looking at. I'd say everyone is going to have to make a determination of where this is going to go in the long run," Larson said.


text: Raff and Gammon were promoters and distributors for Edison's Vitascope. The papers in this collection deal with the sale of equipment and films. The firm's correspondence includes letters and telegrams from Miss Annette Reynolds. She bought films from Raff and Gammon to show in her theater in Saratoga Springs, New York.


text:
A few minutes ago, I sat down with my planner to write in holidays and such that are coming up through the end of the year and...SCORE!!! I have a LOT of time off during September and October. Days where I can concentrate fully on DIY projects and all things wedding related. At least, that's the plan. My office is closed for holidays or, I am taking vacation on:
- September 1 - holiday
- September 12 - vacation for florist appts and shopping with my mom for her dress
- September 30 - holiday
- October 1 - holiday
- October 9 - holiday
- October 14 - holiday
- October 30 - vacation for engagement photos!
Now, I just need to really organize my thoughts (and supplies) about each of my DIY projects, schedule them out and make a plan. And, maybe, use one of those days to shop for BP gifts and Christmas gifts at the same time.
On another note entirely...I may have mentioned earlier that I have a cat. I adopted him 11 years ago as an adult rescue and, until I moved in with FI, he was my only roommate for all this time. My poor boy has not handled this move well at all. He's not acting like himself, is not using his litter consistently and doesn't seem to be bathing himself as well. He is an elderly cat but, these are not good signs. So, I'm taking him to the vet this afternoon and just hoping they have an easy solution for us.


text:
You are now leaving FlightsFrom.com for Skyscanner in 3 seconds.
Disclaimer: The trip you are searching for may not be available for booking. The tickets can be sold out, the airline may not be affiliated with our partner or any of the major booking engines. Or the airline may not sell tickets between these airports for other various reasons.


text:
Pa Salt leaves his daughter Star a small figurine in the shape of a black panther, as well as a letter directing her to an antiquarian bookshop in London. Star and her sisters were each adopted from various parts of the world and raised on Pa Salt's magnificent estate on the shores of Lake Geneva. They've grown up well, never acting spoiled as a result of their lives of privilege, but each feels lacking in some way, compelled to discover their birth heritage. By leaving them mysterious clues, their adoptive father helps to set them on a journey which not only reveals their past but also charts their future.
Named after a constellation of stars, the first sister Maia goes to Brazil in The Seven Sisters which is also an introduction to the series. The second sister Ally, goes to Norway in The Storm Sister. In this instalment, Star steps out from the shadow of her sister to go to the Lake District and Kent, entering the world of British aristocracy in the Edwardian era.
The historical aspect of this fiction series is definitely its strength and is what intrigues me the most. Even though these books are cosy, romantic sagas to sink into, the amount of research that went into the real people behind the stories, raises these novels to a higher level with wide appeal.
Though Flora MacNichol is a fictional character, her life as it entwines with Alice Keppel, King Edward the VII, and Beatrix Potter is fascinating. There is also an unrelated but interesting real life connection to Prince Charles and Camilla which I will let you discover on your own. Lucinda Riley's website provides a great deal of information about the true stories behind the books, for further reading pleasure, here is the link.


text:
I am happy to announce that I have managed to get Debian Stretch ARM64 running on the Raspberry Pi 3 with a custom kernel. It required me to recompile the Raspbian kernel with ARM64 support and install the kernel modules, as well as install a few other packages.
I managed to get Debian Stretch running with the XFCE desktop running Chromium and LibreOffice at acceptable speed.
Pi's built-in WiFi currently not working, but Ethernet works fine. I've released a pre-release image you can find at https://github.com/CodeExecution/Debian64Pi under the releases section. This image is in testing stage and you may encounter some issues.
For those who want to build the image themselves, instructions are found at https://github.com/CodeExecution/Debian ... uctions.md
The image is a minimal installation and does not include a desktop environment, but one can be installed by following the instructions on the GitHub page. Once Debian Stretch for Pi 3 becomes stable, I will release versions that have desktop environments pre-installed (such as Debian XFCE and Debian MATE).


text:
The best technical support: we will help you succeed!
All our plans and kits come with full technical support. Ask questions on our support web site bateau2.com.
Designers and fellow builders will respond immediately. At the same site, you will find hundreds of pages of tutorials, plans updates, a forum to share ideas about our boats and thousands of pictures - see completed boats and many of the building steps done by builders like you.
All of the supplies required to build our boats are available at BoatBuilderCentral.com. Epoxy resins, fiberglass, marine plywood, foam, paint and hardware will be delivered to your door at a lower price than local stores.


text:
Okay, so I was able to do the head switch I wanted, but after boiling and popping the arms off, I can't seem to get them back on. I'm working with a clone trooper and just want the same arms back in there, but the hole looks ridiculoously small. Any suggestions? I was able to pop the legs back on, but they are a little looser than I'd like.
When I can't get the appendages back on, I just make sure that the sockets are wet before I try again. There have been times when I've had trouble getting the legs to go back on, but the arms usually go back on without a problem. Good luck!
Page created in 0.095 seconds with 18 queries.


text:
Oschino Goes Off At A Rocafella Video Shoot For Getting Denied To Take Clothes Home! (Ends Without A Brawl About To Break Out) (The Last Days Of The Roc Pt. 6) [Unreleased Footage]
By Choke No Joke
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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text:
Cheap T-shirt Printing | College Station, TX | Create custom T-shirts Online
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– WE DON'T SAVE ON OUR CUSTOMERS. We use only best inks, transfer paper, 100% cotton t-shirts and materials
– NATIONWIDE DELIVERY. Doesn'r matter where you are. We will produce and ship your order to any US state or territory**
– LAST-MINUTE ORDERS WELCOMED. We offer rush-service
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text:
Your baby's sleep - expert dossier
Practical advice for a good night's sleep
The number of hours that your baby sleeps during the day can vary considerably from one baby to another: as long as your baby is alert and in good health, don't worry if he sleeps a lot… or very little. The most important thing for him over the first few months is to learn the difference between night and day: that way, he will spontaneously pick up the sleep rhythm that best suits him.
Sleeping in the right conditions
- Always put your baby to bed on his back, ensuring that his airways are completely clear. This position dramatically reduces the risk of cot death.
- Cot bumpers are generally not advised – they can result in your baby suffocating. If your baby's bed does have one, however, put it under the mattress to stop him from lifting it up.
- If you want to have your baby sleep in your room for the first few weeks or months, don't deprive yourself: after 9 months inside your tummy, he will be very reassured by your being there during the night. But for the whole family to be happy with this choice, it has to be made with dad's agreement. Dad will also play an important role in helping you to slowly "break away" when you decide to move your baby into his own room.
- Watch out for the first few signs of your baby feeling sleepy: for him to fall asleep easily, you have to put him to bed as soon as he starts to look tired, right at the start of the sleep cycle. Every child has his own way of showing you that he is tired – and you have to learn how to read the signs. they can yawn, rub their eyes, suck their thumb or touch their earlobes. Sometimes the arches of their eyebrows go red. Or they get excited and can't calm down. Or they just withdraw completely. As soon as you see these signs, put your baby to bed immediately.
Helping your baby to fall asleep
- Rocking your baby will reproduce exactly the same movements that they became accustomed to inside your tummy: doing this often helps very young babies to fall asleep. If your baby does not calm down by himself, rock him in your arms or put him in a proper cradle that you can gently rock to help him fall asleep. If possible, try and end the rocking before your child is completely asleep. This way, he will gradually learn to fall asleep on his own and get back to sleep after the inevitable night-time interruptions between two sleep cycles.
- Mothers often give pacifiers to their babies as an automatic reflex. Unfortunately, this will result in you being woken up many times during the night – the child takes several months to learn how to put it back in when they lose it. Whenever possible, avoid getting into this habit with your baby so as to avoid being woken up too many times.
- Once your baby is sleeping in his own room, decorate it with familiar objects that he will enjoy seeing every day (posters, mobiles, teddy bears, etc.). This will help him relax and fall asleep easily.
- A security blanket, teddy bear or a piece of cloth with your scent on it will also help your child separate from you, eventually helping him to fall asleep on his own.
- After the first few months of your child's life, adopt a going-to-bed ritual involving cuddles, a story, gentle singing, etc. These habits will quickly become associated with an essential transition between day and night for your baby, helping him to prepare for the long night of being apart from you. But make sure that this ritual does not last too long: otherwise if you appear to have difficulty leaving him, you may end up making your child think that the night is a period of danger.
Managing night-time interruptions
- Over the first few months, if your baby wakes up frequently crying during the night, twisting around painfully after a bottle or breast feed, and unable to stay lying down, it may well be that he is suffering from infantile colic or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD): these painful conditions are very common among very young babies. Talk about it with your paediatrician. There are a number of ways to quickly soothe your child and get him sleeping properly (raising his mattress, using a thickening milk, etc.)
- At 1 year-old, your baby's sleep may be disturbed by nightmares. If he wakes up crying and frightened, turn on a soft light and reassure him, rocking him and gently speaking to him to bring him back to reality. If necessary, you can stay next to him until he falls asleep again.
- You should not confuse night terrors, which are similar to sleepwalking, with nightmares. These can sometimes be very upsetting: the child sits up or stands on their bed, shouts, opens their eyes, and seems very agitated and afraid. And yet… they are still asleep! If this happens, don't wake your child up. Instead, establish physical contact with him, reassuring him and gently stroking his head or shoulders. Remain next to him until he calms down. Don't worry: night terrors do not present any danger for your baby.


text:
You might have noticed that VMC – the Mars Webcam – has been quiet recently. Don't worry: it's all expected – it's just further proof of the challenges and excitement of planetary spaceflight!
Today, Mars is at the worst point of a period known as 'solar conjunction', which means that Mars is on the exact opposite side of the Sun from Earth. Seen from the Earth at around 16:00 today, Mars appears only 0.7658 degrees from the Sun – less than the width of your finger held at arm's length!
This results in major disturbances in our communications from Earth to Mars Express and back; as a result the spacecraft has been put into an autonomous operations mode, with all activities on hold until we come out the other side.
The video above shows the Sun from the start of this year until today – with the streamer-like tendrils of its atmosphere, the corona. Coming in from the left of the video is a bright speck – Mars! Invisible here is the tiny dot of Mars Express orbiting the red planet. Our problem communicating with Mars Express comes from the fact that the radio beam from the spacecraft has to pass through this atmosphere, getting distorted on the way.
On top of that, our dish antennas on Earth have problems picking out the weak signal from Mars Express from the 'noise' of the Sun. All of this makes this period, about a month long, especially challenging for communications with all Mars missions.
To keep the spacecraft safe, we have to give it enough information for it to look after itself for the month when we are passing behind the Sun. There's simply not enough memory on the spacecraft to also include instructions on how to carry out its normal activities (including VMC imaging!) – all the space is used up with our commands on how to look after itself for a month alone, out of contact with Earth!
The video above was produced using the excellent JHelioViewer tool, developed with funding from ESA and NASA.
It shows in blue and red the view from the LASCO instrument on the ESA/NASA SOHO solar observatory mission. This instrument puts a disc in front of the Sun to block the direct light, and what can be seen is the corona, and in this case, Mars passing behind it. In the centre are images from the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory AIA instrument, showing the blazing Sun in the middle of our solar system. – Thomas


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text:
A few weeks ago I made some potato rolls using the Tangzhong process and they came out excellent.
I decided I needed some rolls for some hot dogs and sandwiches for the week so I used the same process as before but this time I used some cream cheese and heavy cream as well as whole eggs and butter to really try to come up with a tasty and soft roll.
Just to pretend these rolls were a little healthy I used some spelt and Kamut flour along with the bread flour.
I mixed these up the same way as last time but cut back on the total mixing time and it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
The final rolls came out nice and fluffy and soft but with a ton of flavor. I honestly can't stop eating them which is not good.
The final result was a nice soft crumb, crisp crust and tasty roll.
Note: Tangzhong consisted of 50 grams Bread Flour and 250 grams heavy cream. I included this in the overall formula below.
Levain Directions
Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap. Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled. I usually do this the night before.
Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.
Main Dough Procedure
Prepare the Tangzhong. Use a 5 to 1 liquid to solid ratio (so 250g liquid to 50g flour) and mix it together in a pan. Heat the pan while stirring constantly. Initially it will remain a liquid, but as you approach 65C it will undergo a change and thicken to an almost pudding like consistency. Take it off the heat and let it cool before using it in your recipe. Some people will refrigerate it for a while but you can use it right away as soon as it cools..
Mix the flours, Tangzhong and milk together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute. Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes. Next add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces), and walnut oil, cream cheese and butter and mix on low for a minute. Mix for a total of 6 minutes in your mixer starting on low-speed and working your way up to speed #2 for the last 4 minutes. Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds. Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold. Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold. After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.
When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours. Remove the dough and cut into equal size pieces and shape into rolls. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and cover with moist tea towels or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.
The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature. Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.
Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam. I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf. I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.
Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, using a simple egg wash brush each roll and sprinkle on your topping of choice. Next add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.
After 1 minute lower the temperature to 425 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes until the crust is nice and brown.
Take the rolls out of the oven when done and let them cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.
This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/.


text:
One Wednesday last month, Ann Curry, camouflaged in a hat and trench coat, trudged into the art-deco lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It had been nine months since she was pushed out as co-host of the "Today" show. Curry was now NBC's "national and international correspondent" and the anchor at large for "Today," but these titles seemed honorary. Curry had appeared on "Today" only a handful of times since her ouster. She had no role in NBC's coverage of election night or Inauguration Day. She taped a few stories for "Rock Center," the prime-time newsmagazine show, but as she explained on Twitter, her bosses kept rescheduling them. Curry had moved to an office on the 27th floor of 30 Rock, far from her NBC News bosses on the third floor. On this morning, she was at work on a short "NBC Nightly News" segment about the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. It would be only her sixth appearance on the network all year.
For NBC, limiting Curry's exposure seemed wise. Her tear-stained departure from "Today" had become a public-relations debacle, deeply damaging the most lucrative franchise in television news. Just one day after Curry signed off, the advantage "Today" had over its top rival, ABC's "Good Morning America," turned into a 600,000-viewer deficit. Millions in advertising revenue vanished.
If the network was still reeling from her mismanaged departure, Curry, who spent much of the past year lying low at her home in New Canaan, Conn., had not yet recovered, either. She still often woke before dawn as if she were about to go on the air. Some mornings, she cried as she read e-mail and Twitter messages from fans. For weeks she couldn't bring herself to return to 30 Rock, where her closed office door bore a red Post-it note that read "Do Not Enter" in capital letters.
Many executives at the network never grasped how profoundly hurt and humiliated Curry remained — not just by her televised dismissal but by all the backstage machinations that led to that fateful morning. Curry felt that the boys' club atmosphere behind the scenes at "Today" undermined her from the start, and she told friends that her final months were a form of professional torture. The growing indifference of Matt Lauer, her co-host, had hurt the most, but there was also just a general meanness on set. At one point, the executive producer, Jim Bell, commissioned a blooper reel of Curry's worst on-air mistakes. Another time, according to a producer, Bell called staff members into his office to show a gaffe she made during a cross-talk with a local station. (Bell denies both incidents.) Then several boxes of Curry's belongings ended up in a coat closet, as if she had already been booted off the premises. One staff person recalled that "a lot of time in the control room was spent making fun of Ann's outfit choices or just generally messing with her." On one memorable spring morning, Curry wore a bright yellow dress that spawned snarky comparisons to Big Bird. The staff person said that others in the control room, which included 14 men and 3 women, according to my head count one morning, Photoshopped a picture of Big Bird next to Curry and asked co-workers to vote on "Who wore it best?"
[ALSO READ: NBC Receives at Least 2 New Complaints About Matt Lauer]
Curry had spent 22 years, a majority of her professional life, in the hallways of the NBC headquarters. She knew 30 Rock's shortcuts: the side door out of Studio 1A that allowed her to dart across 49th Street and avoid the tourists; and the exit that ensured she would bump into autograph seekers in the concourse. But on this March morning, according to a colleague, she was standing in the lobby and was unable to find her employee badge. Instead of being waved through by a security guard or rescued by one of the legions of pages or young producers from "Today," Curry queued up at NBC's visitors' center, where the lunch-delivery guys and MSNBC guests announced themselves. Her attempts at being unnoticed, in her trench coat and hat, were backfiring. When it was her turn, Curry immediately apologized to the guard — gratuitous apologies were one of her on-air trademarks. The guard looked at her quizzically.
"Name?" he asked.
"Ann Curry," she said.
Then, after a moment. "A-N-N." Pause. "C-U-R-R-Y."
Many people dismiss morning television as fluff, but the morning hours are where the money is. While the Internet has upended the nightly news, and on-demand services like Netflix continue to disrupt prime time, the morning shows remain one place in the TV industry where the business model still really works, at least for now. Thanks to its five million daily viewers and four hours of irrepressible cheer, "Today" earns NBC $500 million in annual revenue. By 2011, the year the network was acquired by Comcast, the show was effectively subsidizing the rest of the news division, including "NBC Nightly News" and "Meet the Press." It was also propping up NBC's sagging prime-time lineup by providing free promotional time for "The Voice" or whatever crime drama the network was trying at 10 p.m. that week.
"Today" was able to do all this for a very specific reason: it was winning the ratings game. Being No. 1 in the morning matters not just in the amount that sales representatives can extract from advertisers — though "Today" made an estimated $150 million more than its second-place rival, "Good Morning America," in 2011 — but also in reputation, in pride and in sheer television-industry pull. "Today" had the upper hand in booking A-list celebrities. It had the clout to insist that a politician talk to Lauer before anyone else. NBC recruiters dangled face time on "Today" when trying to hire a correspondent away from a rival network.
The importance of holding on to the top spot led to intense pressure and, on occasion, pretty bad behavior. Behind the scenes, "Today" regularly came up with new Nielsen ratings tricks (clever use of commercials excluded less-popular segments from ratings); sneaky ways to reward guests for giving interviews (one family received accommodations at an NBC-owned theme park); and stunts to get under the skin of "G.M.A." (when the competition booked Katie Couric as a weeklong guest host, "Today" countered with her nemesis, Sarah Palin). There was no shortage of squabbling among the hosts over airtime, who got to interview the president, say, or who had to do the talking-animal segment. The key, of course, was preventing viewers from getting even the faintest whiff of the cutthroat attitudes lurking off camera. After all, morning TV, unlike the news or late night, is a team sport in which all the players' fates are intertwined. And more than any other show, "Today" had sold itself as a family — "America's First Family."
[ALSO READ: Matt Lauer Offers Apology (With a Caveat)]
The comings and goings of family members on "Today" have always been fraught. But, with the exception of Deborah Norville's disastrously brief succession of Jane Pauley in 1990, the show's producers have prided themselves on executing smooth handoffs: from Bryant Gumbel to Lauer in 1997; Couric to Meredith Vieira in 2006; and Vieira to Curry in 2011. The show accomplished these seamless transitions largely by grooming potential successors on the air. Research indicated that viewers preferred it that way; they felt they had a vested interest in the person's success and often remarked in surveys that they were "rooting" for the person to be promoted all along. Before being promoted to co-host, Couric was a correspondent on the show; Lauer and Curry were news readers. Vieira, who came from "The View" on ABC, was also a known and liked quantity when she landed on "Today," a promotion to be sure. Each of these transitions was carefully orchestrated to appear as an anointment or a retirement.
Despite the inherent risks of high-profile successions, "Today" managed to defeat "Good Morning America" in the ratings every week since Dec. 11, 1995. By 2012, "the streak," as it was called in the business, had come to define "Today." As the show neared 840 consecutive winning weeks, however, it was at risk. On the week starting Jan. 9, for example, the show's lead over "G.M.A.," which had been roughly 1.1 million viewers one year earlier, had been cut nearly in half. Viewers were increasingly attracted to "G.M.A.," which, in the Robin Roberts-George Stephanopoulos era, had become brighter and lighter — the cast was more bubbly and the stories more gossip-laden. And short: If you didn't like what they were covering, you could just wait 45 seconds and the cast would be on to a Chihuahua playing pool. NBC executives could complain all they wanted about "the crap on 'G.M.A.,' " as one of them put it, but viewers voted every day, and more of them were voting for the competition.
By comparison, "Today" had stuck to the same camera angles and scripted intros and outros since the 1990s. Some suggested that the show was getting stale. Others privately wondered if Lauer's star power was beginning to fade. By January, Bell had another culprit in mind: Ann Curry. So insistent was Bell that Curry was the problem — that she was "out of position," as he put it in an e-mail to his deputies — that he had been talking about it with friends for months. One morning-TV veteran suggested to him that firing Curry, who had been co-hosting for only about six months at that point, would be tantamount to "killing Bambi." Undeterred, Bell hatched a careful three-part plan: 1.) persuade Lauer to extend his expiring contract; 2.) oust Curry; 3.) replace her with Savannah Guthrie. According to this source, Bell called his plan Operation Bambi.
Bell, a 6-foot-4 former Harvard lineman, was well liked by his staff. He was considered a straight shooter who would do anything for the sake of the show. (Bell denies using the term "Operation Bambi.") The coinage, however, was indicative of a few larger truths about morning television. Though it is created largely for women, the business is, even now, managed mostly by men, including those who like to think in terms of war, sabotage and embarrassing James Bond-like names for things they do in the office. It's also marred by the striking effects of sleep deprivation: paranoia, hot tempers, rash decisions. It probably doesn't help that morning hosts are, almost by definition, multimillionaires, making far more than the producers they supposedly work for, and far, far more than the staff members who toil for them at 5 a.m. It's a situation unusually conducive to resentment.
At "Today," the enmity started at the highest levels, between Bell and the man who was technically his boss, Steve Capus, the president of NBC News. Capus, who was known around the office as "the Rage," a reference to his short temper, resented Bell, who was adept at navigating NBC's internal politics and who was perceived to be close to Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal. When Capus learned that Bell wanted to force Curry out, he invoked "the streak" and argued that her removal would force the show out of first place. So Bell appealed directly to Burke. "We need to make a change," Bell told him. Burke ultimately agreed. Operation Bambi was a go.
Before she even arrived at Studio 1A, Curry's ambition was legendary. In 1993, while anchoring an early-morning show called "NBC News at Sunrise," Curry made a play for the weekend "Nightly News" slot. When it went to Brian Williams instead, she called the president of NBC News, Andrew Lack, at his home to express her frustration. When she eventually replaced Lauer as the "Today" news reader four years later, Curry jockeyed to fill in for Katie Couric every time Couric was away. According to several well-placed producers, Couric didn't appreciate Curry's eagerness. Producers said Couric thought Curry was melodramatic and, in a word that one used, "fake."
As early as 2003, with three years to go until Couric's contract expired, executives were already trying to nudge Curry off the co-host track. They saw that she and Lauer, who had hosted together dozens of times, demonstrated a distinct lack of chemistry. "I don't think anybody back then thought Ann was right," said Tom Touchet, the executive producer of "Today" at the time, who called her a "wacky chick" with a "great heart." Neal Shapiro, who succeeded Lack as president of NBC News, suggested that Curry be moved to "Dateline NBC," the prime-time newsmagazine. "The audience would understand moving to prime time was a great promotion, and there would be no backlash against 'Today,' " Shapiro recalled. "By making her a host of 'Dateline,' we could open up the news-anchor job on 'Today' to someone like Natalie Morales or Hoda Kotb" and start publicly grooming another successor for Couric.
Ultimately, though, Jeff Zucker, who gave birth to the streak in 1995 as the young executive producer of "Today" and had risen in the corporate ranks ever since, quashed the plan. Zucker agreed that Lauer and Curry didn't have chemistry, but he said that Curry was a crucial supporting player in the "First Family." As Couric prepared to leave for CBS, Zucker decided to pursue Meredith Vieira as co-host. Zucker kept his courtship a secret from Curry. When Vieira agreed to take the job, in April 2006, Zucker called Curry to his office for what he said was a "very uncomfortable conversation." As soon as Curry saw the direction of the talk, her tears started welling up. Curry told Zucker that she believed she had earned the chance to co-host. She said that she might leave the network.
[ALSO READ: Matt Lauer Firing Caps a Difficult Time at NBC News]
Zucker, who was now on his way to being chief executive, told her that she could go, but that he genuinely wanted her to stay. Curry ultimately decided to wait for her next opportunity at the co-host chair. To protect herself, she had her agent add an "out" clause in her next contract, which allowed her to go to work for another network immediately if she was passed over again. (A source close to Curry denied that this meeting took place.)
After the Vieira kerfuffle blew over, NBC paid surprisingly little attention to a succession plan. Curry remained as the news reader at "Today," cementing the impression among viewers that she would eventually succeed Vieira. In 2010, when Vieira's contract was about to expire, she committed to just one more year. At the time, however, NBC was being acquired by Comcast. History suggests that big corporate maneuvers tend to coincide with changes in morning-TV fortunes, either because the new managers tinker with the product or fail to take it seriously. "G.M.A." fell out of first place just as Capital Cities took over ABC in the mid-1980s. It clawed its way back in the mid-1990s, only to fall again when the Walt Disney Company acquired Capital Cities/ABC. The "Today" streak started months after the Disney deal was announced.
Around the time that NBC's new owners asked him to leave, at the end of 2010, Zucker warned his lieutenants against promoting Curry to co-host. But it was no longer his call. In early 2011, after Vieira said she wanted to exit her contract a few months early, Capus went to bat for Curry's ascendancy with his new boss, Steve Burke. He pointed to her Q Score, which was very high, and her popularity among focus groups. (NBC is probably the most data-driven of the broadcast networks.) Capus called it a "nondecision," but loyalty had a lot to do with it, too. Capus went way back with Curry: he was her producer on "Sunrise" in the 1990s. She attended his wedding. "Steve felt very bad about not giving her the job," a colleague said. Capus later told me, "It was her turn."
Bell disagreed. He believed that just because Curry was beloved in one job didn't mean she was right for another. He took some meetings with potentially poachable outsiders like Megyn Kelly, a rising star on the Fox News Channel. He also inquired about meeting with Robin Roberts, though it never happened. Ultimately, Bell went along with Curry's promotion. "He wasn't necessarily pro-Ann; he just didn't have a better option," the same colleague said.
Still, the fundamental reason Curry got the job had nothing to do with either her ambition or what the men who ran "Today" thought. In his pitch to Burke, Capus laid out the main issue: Lauer's contract was set to expire at the end of 2012, and there was considerable uncertainty about whether he wanted to stay at "Today." If Vieira left, and Curry was passed over again, she could exercise her right to run to a competitor. Then if Lauer left a year later, "Today" risked an existential crisis. It might have sounded like a paranoid chain reaction, but it was also a terrifying possibility. Burke's decision, according to other NBC executives, became a nondecision: Curry had to stay in case Lauer didn't. "If Meredith's leaving and we can't convince her not to leave," he told Capus, "it goes to Ann."
Curry turned out to be out of her depth almost immediately. During her first morning as co-host, on June 9, 2011, she made a joke about not wearing deodorant that made Lauer look genuinely embarrassed. The strikes against her added up fast: her critics said she sounded disingenuous in interviews, had an annoying habit of whisper-talking to grieving guests and struggled to read from the teleprompter. One day early in her tenure, according to a longtime staff member, Lauer told a production assistant, "I can't believe I am sitting next to this woman." (Lauer, through a spokeswoman, denied saying this.) Barely a month after she started, Bell confessed to a former colleague, "It was probably a mistake, but we just didn't want to wake up and see Ann on another network." (Bell later denied saying this.)
By the beginning of 2012, the same paranoia that had led NBC to promote Curry was now prompting conversations about demoting her. And so in February, Burke effectively initiated the first phase of Bell's operation: he told Lauer about the plot to replace Curry with Guthrie, whose playful, sometimes bashful personality many of NBC's top executives found appealing. She had more than held her own with Lauer whenever Curry was away, unlike Natalie Morales, her co-host in the 9 a.m. hour, who, executives believed, didn't have the personality to carry the show.
Lauer, who was genuinely thinking about leaving "Today," had wanted to put off his contract talks until the fall. Burke urged him to make up his mind by April so that, if he stayed, the network could introduce a new co-host in June, shortly before the Summer Olympics, NBC's highest-rated weeks of the year. Lauer would later say that Burke told him Curry was going to be relieved of her post regardless of what he did. But that defies morning-television logic: NBC couldn't afford to lose both anchors in the same year. According to a source with direct knowledge of the conversation, Burke told Lauer, "We need to sign you so we can do Ann." Burke, who had to be keenly aware of Lauer's discomfort with Curry, was basically scratching her off his list of reservations. (As a top NBC executive said to me after the fact, "Matt's decision guided everything else.") Burke even offered Lauer a signing bonus of several million dollars, according to the same person, to decide swiftly.
Lauer's subsequent contract renewal, announced on April 6, called for him to earn a reported $25 million a year. Exactly a week later — coincidentally the same week that "Good Morning America" ended the "Today" streak after 852 weeks — Bell initiated Phase 2 of Operation Bambi. On Friday, April 13, he stopped by Curry's dressing room as she packed for a vacation in California, and told her, "We need to talk as soon as you get back." Curry wasn't sure what to expect two weeks later, when they settled in for lunch at the opulent midtown French restaurant La Grenouille. The pair hadn't agreed on much of anything since her promotion in June; Bell had even discouraged Curry from moving her belongings into the "Today" co-host office next to Lauer's. (She moved in anyway.) While Curry regularly agitated for less sensationalism and more serious news coverage, Bell argued that tabloid fare about grisly murders and missing white women was an important part of the morning TV mix. In January, as Operation Bambi was coming together in his head, Bell confronted Curry about her reluctance to do the tabloid segments. "You need to be all in," he told her harshly.
La Grenouille, with its grand dining room adorned with elaborate flower arrangements and silk wallpaper, was just the sort of setting for Bell to elegantly present his plan as a promotion. He ordered a bottle of wine and dove right in, suggesting that Curry move into a new roving correspondent role — he called it a "global anchor" — tailor-made for her. Knowing that Curry would have to see this as an opportunity, Bell turned up the charm. He explained that this was not just a step toward better journalism, but also a great way to brand "Today" as a serious show. She would never have to utter the name Casey Anthony again.
Bell ordered a second bottle of wine. Curry was stunned by what she was hearing. She had barely had the co-host job for nine months, and now Bell was proposing that she give it up? In the moment, Curry didn't display any of the awkward behavior she showed on-air. She nodded her head at all the right moments and said she would like to be able to travel more. She may have had reservations, but she agreed to give his idea serious thought. As Bell later told colleagues, he believed he had "gotten her halfway there."
That he was mistaken soon became abundantly clear. In May, after "G.M.A." notched its second and third weekly victories over "Today," numerous NBC executives concluded that Curry was in denial about her predicament. One complained about her "huge sense of entitlement," saying she thought her "Today" post "was a Supreme Court appointment." Truthfully, Curry didn't know what to believe. Capus, although aware of Bell and Burke's desire to fire Curry before the Olympics, was still trying to reassure Curry. He wanted to postpone any change until at least the end of the year. "Well," she thought to herself, according to friends, "Steve is Jim's boss, so if he says not to worry. . . ."
[ALSO READ: Matt Lauer's History at 'Today': Two Decades of Highs and Lows]
The mixed signals, many people would later acknowledge, were a sign of how dysfunctional "Today" had become. The friction between Lauer and Curry paled in comparison to the infighting between Bell and Capus. As early as 2011, when Comcast took over NBC, Capus wanted to replace Bell, who he felt was ruining the show. Instead Burke promoted Bell to produce the Summer Olympics while still running "Today." After the streak was snapped, their disagreements over the show deepened. Capus, like Curry, saw poor content choices — a daily diet of murder trials, questionable fashion trends and equally dubious celebrity gossip — as the underlying problem, even if those stories tended to score highest in the ratings. He blamed one of Bell's top lieutenants, Noah Kotch, who was known to his detractors as "the trash doctor" because he programmed a disciplined menu of crime, sex and celebrity scandal in the 7:30 half-hour. In mid-April, Capus, who was rarely seen around "Today," chastised the senior staff members for their reliance on TMZ and The Daily Mail.
This behind-the-scenes ugliness was starting to rupture TV's "first family" veneer. On May 15, while interviewing Betty White, Curry exclaimed: "You've got two shows, you're 90 years old. Honey, how — I mean, I barely am hanging on to one show!" By Memorial Day, Capus ceded to his bosses' wishes and instructed Curry to hire a lawyer. Secret contract negotiations commenced, and by mid-June she was starting to come around to the roving-correspondent idea, at least until Bell and Burke's Summer Olympics deadline was published in The New York Times. Curry was stunned by their callousness, and she felt the publicity surrounding the transition robbed her of a chance to exit gracefully, and she basically shut down. Her weepy departure on June 28 would have been a P.R. crisis for any network, but it was doubly bad for NBC, which employed just one dedicated P.R. person, Megan Kopf, to oversee all of "Today" — its stars, correspondents and producers. (Kopf was also trying to deal with the fallout while planning her wedding.) Of course, the ugly truths about "Today" couldn't be spun by anyone. Mere hours after Curry's signoff, Bell took his top producers to Brasserie Ruhlmann, a Rockefeller Plaza restaurant that often doubled as a high-end NBC cafeteria. One observer said that he led the group in raising wineglasses to toast her departure. The next day Guthrie's appointment would be announced. Operation Bambi was complete.
Curry was sad after signing off, but also enraged. When critics blamed a lack of chemistry for her departure, she dismissed it to friends it as a euphemism for something else. " 'Chemistry,' in television history, generally means the man does not want to work with the woman," Curry was known to have remarked. "It's an excuse generally used by men in positions of power to say, 'The woman doesn't work.' "
The ratings for the first episode of "Today" without her revealed that her fans had fled en masse. NBC executives expected the numbers to normalize after the Olympics, but there was only a downward spiral. On particularly bad days "Good Morning America" beat "Today" by a million viewers. Some of this was attributed to Curry's fans exacting revenge. She was overwhelmed by condolences. "It feels like I died," she told colleagues afterward, "and I've seen my own wake."
Curry's new contract, which pushed her salary beyond $5 million a year, more than she made as co-host, was partly granted, no doubt to guard against the impression that she was fired and to encourage her to keep any hurt feelings to herself — and not share them with any of the publishers lining up for a tell-all book. It was also meant to protect the show. And some executives believed that Curry did "not live up to her end of the bargain," as one of them put it. After the tragic Aurora movie-theater shooting, NBC booked Curry on a flight to Colorado and announced that she would co-host the next day's "Today" with Guthrie. The plan was intended to reassure viewers that all was well within "America's First Family." But Curry didn't find out about the plan until after her plane landed and then refused to go along with it. Instead, she filed a single four-minute segment. One staff member was told to look into booking Curry and Guthrie on separate flights home.
After Curry's departure, many NBC executives were coming around to the idea that it was the show that "didn't work." While Lauer and Guthrie were developing their rapport, Burke began to clean up "Today." He rolled up NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC into one division and placed it under the management of Pat Fili-Krushel, one of his most trusted executives and, notably, a woman. Fili-Krushel immediately homed in on what she believed were the problems. "It just hasn't evolved," she told associates about the show. She wanted to make the show move faster and make its set feel warmer and friendlier. She also wanted to replace its producer. About a month after the Olympics ended, Fili-Krushel met with Bell and told him that he had a choice. He could produce "Today" or he could produce future Olympics broadcasts, but he couldn't do both. And if he wanted to keep "Today," he needed to "do some soul searching," Fili-Krushel told him, "to decide if you have the energy to evolve this show." Bell held on for weeks, even while Fili-Krushel and Capus started to consider candidates for his job. Eventually he chose the Olympics. (Bell disputes this account. He says he chose to focus on the Olympics independently.)
During this tumultuous period, NBC commissioned Sterling Brands, a consulting firm, to diagnose what exactly had gone wrong at "Today." Sterling interviewed Lauer, Guthrie, Bell and nine other senior staff members anonymously, in order to keep their assessments private. The results turned out to be damningly frank. One of them said that "our sense of family is broken." Another said, "Matt is being blamed, and some in our audience see Savannah as the younger replacement wife." Another interviewee suggested that Curry wasn't the only problem, saying, "People were leaving for the content, too." But the most revealing comment had nothing to do with Curry at all. "If I look at the show," one of the 12 people said, "I am not sure I'd know what year it is. I want to feel like we are watching 2012." The staff members also went after "Good Morning America," but they were honest about the competition's strengths. "They look like they are having more fun," the report concluded.
Even with Curry off the show, no one was having much fun at "Today" through the beginning of 2013. Almost exactly a year after the commencement of Operation Bambi, their world looked remarkably different. Curry was working on her two-and-a-half-minute "Nightly News" segment on the 27th floor; Bell was off running the Olympics. Capus had resigned. Even Kotch, the "trash doctor," was gone. In the previous year, "Today," locked in at No. 2, had ceded about $50 million in advertising. The only man still standing was Lauer, but he was damaged, too: viewers held him responsible for the family's split. "I bet he hasn't had one happy day since he renewed," said an executive at a rival network.
And it wasn't over. In January, the New York magazine writer Joe Hagan told NBC that he was piecing together an article about the stumbles at "Today." Fearing that the article would come out worse if the network didn't cooperate, NBC granted interviews with Lauer and others. But Lauer admitted to Hagan that he never tried to patch things up with Curry, which fueled the story line that he was the cause of her departure. Lauer also spoke to an extremely sympathetic interviewer, Howard Kurtz of The Daily Beast, who published his article before Hagan's story ran. That attempt at image rehabilitation was so transparent that it inspired headlines like "Matt Lauer Wasn't Mean to Ann Curry, Says Matt Lauer." Lauer's contract wasn't up until at least 2014, but on the third floor, staff members regularly asked each other to make the kinds of predictions that they once made about Curry: "Do you think Matt will be here this time next year?"
The office gossip became public when Deadline.com, Nikki Finke's industry news Web site, got word that the office of Fili-Krushel had placed a call to the agent of Anderson Cooper, CNN's biggest star, whose contract was coming up. Besides demonstrating the ability to guilelessly interview celebrities, Cooper passed the all-important "9/11 test" — shorthand, in network speak, for someone with the gravitas to deliver the most significant news stories. The call suggested that NBC was finally taking "Today" succession planning seriously, arguably something it had failed to do for years. But it again proved unable to keep its family business private. The in-house favorite to succeed Lauer, Willie Geist, who co-hosted the show's 9 a.m. hour, felt stung.
The next day, to improve staff morale, Fili-Krushel threw an open bar "Today" staff party. And in the media, her lieutenants forswore any interest in going through with such a change. During a meeting with his anxious CNN staff, Cooper said pretty much the same thing. But Cooper and Fili-Krushel had actually met for coffee and discussed a role for him on "Today" — not this year, but perhaps in 2014. According to one person with direct knowledge, one option called for Cooper to overlap with Lauer for 12 months, allowing for an orderly transition.
What seems certain is that Lauer's current "Today" contract will be his final one. His wife, Annette, wanted him to leave the show last year and stop splitting his time between their Upper East Side apartment, where he sleeps during the week, and their Hamptons home, where she lives with their three children. He decided to stay anyway. (An NBC spokeswoman denied this on Lauer's behalf.) When I was introduced to Annette at a party a few weeks after his most recent contract was signed, I conveyed my enthusiasm for the show, saying, "I've been waking up with your husband for 15 years." She shot back, "I have, too." I brought up the new contract, and she said, somewhat bitterly, "Two more years, and then he's mine."
Lauer has said he signed again to stop "Today" from sliding. Even though that hasn't happened, his job still seems safe. High-ranking sources within the company suggest that the only way Lauer would leave before his deal ends is if he wanted to. Few at NBC have the stomach for a repeat of last year.
In some sense, being overtaken by "Good Morning America" was the best thing that could have happened to "Today." The streak blinded NBC from the fact that morning TV is facing the same pressures as the rest of the business. Nightly-news producers are reckoning with the effects of new technologies by focusing less on the day's headlines and more on softer features. The executives who run prime time have also adjusted, monetizing their viewers' ability to stream shows whenever they want to watch them. As more and more Americans spend their earliest hours scrolling through news alerts and weather forecasts on their smartphones and tablets, morning shows have to adapt, too. And their biggest competitive advantage may be that, unlike an iPhone, they offer some form of companionship. In the morning, family matters more than ever. While NBC was billing itself as the "first family," "Good Morning America" was behaving like it. In the Fili-Krushel era, "Today" has returned to the team-sport model, pulling the camera out to show all four co-hosts at a new, bigger desk. The focus is greater on other members of the family, like Geist, whom viewers are starting to root for.
Lauer may yet lead "Today" back to No. 1, but the morning is tougher now than ever, with "Good Morning America" on one side and the serious-news interviewers of "CBS This Morning" on the other. There are about a dozen options on cable and more coming all the time. And history suggests that the road back is a long one. After the Norville debacle, it took "Today" five years to take the crown back from "G.M.A." The reputation of Gumbel, Lauer's best friend and predecessor, never quite recovered. Lauer had predicted that he would be hurt by his bosses' plan to remove Curry, but he may have underestimated just how his fate was intertwined with hers.
Earlier this month, Lauer sought advice from his former co-host Meredith Vieira. On April 3 they met for lunch around noon at Park Avenue Spring, an upscale restaurant on East 63rd Street. They swapped stories about their children and then, according to another diner, talked about work in hushed tones. Vieira urged Lauer to tough it out, promising that the bad press would subside. Dessert arrived at the table by 1 p.m., but they lingered until 1:40, bantering the way they used to on television. Lauer held the door for her as they walked outside, and she embraced him, rubbing his back reassuringly and saying in his ear, "It'll be O. K."


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NVIDIA just released a new and faster way of rendering with OpenGL, called Bindless Graphics. Bindless Graphics are changes to OpenGL that can enable close to an order of magnitude improvement in the CPU-limitedness of graphics applications. Recent improvements in programmability have focused on additional flexibility in shaders (expanding formats to include more float and integer types, better branching support, etc.) and enabling new features (geometry programs, transform feedback, etc), and while some of these allow offloading parts of certain workloads to the GPU, they don't directly attack the issues that dominate CPU time.
Bindless Graphics is enabled through two OpenGL extensions. NV_shader_buffer_load and NV_vertex_buffer_unified_memory
You can read the Bindless graphics tutorial for more detail.
Let us know how it works for you!
(with my NVIDIA hat on)